


a smaller world than you’d suppose

by pyrrhlc



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 23:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17876429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhlc/pseuds/pyrrhlc
Summary: Despite appearances, Grantaire misses Gavroche when he’s not around.





	a smaller world than you’d suppose

**Author's Note:**

> A kind of tribute to the Les Mis Manchester cast, who were absolutely amazing when I went to see them on opening night. Grantaire and Gavroche’s friendship made me particularly emotional, so here’s a fic.

**i.**

 

“Grantaire!”

The night is broad and dark above him and Grantaire is drunk enough that he scarcely recognises the voice for what it is: a child’s voice, following him as he walks down beside the Seine, hand in hand with the stars, his mind consumed by the bottle in his hand. He stops as the small shape darts ahead of him, weaving in between the street lights, a cloth cap pulled firmly over the eyes. Gavroche stops and looks at him with a confident smile that quickly wavers, wandering towards fear. Here, Grantaire thinks, is too honest a child for the war they are fighting. A child with too much enthusiasm and too much hope. If he was ever like that himself, he doesn’t remember it.

Gavroche looks up at him with wide, dark eyes, a hare caught in the light of a candle. The sleeves of his jacket fall over his hands. Grantaire wonders who he stole it from.

“Get off with you,” he mumbles, though whether the sentiment is intended for himself or the boy is anyone’s guess. He lurches towards the railing by the water’s edge, his hands clumsier than the rest of him as he drops the bottle into his pocket. In truth, he has not seen Gavroche for several days, and the knowledge of his safety warms his sodden chest. But, he reminds himself just as quickly, safety has always been a relative term.

“You’re drunk,” counters Gavroche. His eyes are hidden by his cap, the street lights casting a shadow over his face, but the worry in his voice does not escape Grantaire even inebriated. He coughs, turning his head away from him – Gavroche ducks under his arm, forcing himself between Grantaire and the railings. Grantaire inhales softly.

“What do you want, Gav?”

“Just checking up on you,” Gavroche says, sticking out his chin. They are living in a world where the children look after the adults. The sudden thought of it makes Grantaire’s chest ache all the more. “You got any change? Spare sou, perhaps?”

Grantaire chuckles under his breath, swatting at him as he flings his weight back against the railings. He could sleep here, if he wanted to. The night is warm enough, and the stars, to a drunk at least, are kind. He fishes a hand into his pocket and hands the contents over to Gavroche with the weary air of someone who has been swindled by a false peddler. Anyone outside of the _amis_ would think Gavroche too old to be pitied, too old to be a gamin. But the rest of them know better. Grantaire, like Gavroche, at least has the decency to look out for his own.

Gavroche’s grubby hands close around the coins; he gives a toothy smile.

“Thanking you kindly, good sir,” he says, lifting his cap. Grantaire’s mind is slow with wine, but even that does not stop him from noticing the second flicker of doubt that crosses Gavroche’s face. Boys such as Gavroche should have no cause for doubtfulness, he thinks. His thoughts filter through too slowly for his liking; by the time Grantaire has opened his mouth to say something, Gavroche is already walking away.

“Night, R!” he yells, glancing back with another doff of his cap. Grantaire wonders what he must look like: a drunken man leaning haphazardly against the railing of the Seine, a bottle in his pocket and with three sous less than preferred. His father cut him off from his allowance last week, but Grantaire can’t bring himself to mind the gesture. He’ll get by. He always does, somehow.

Gavroche vanishes into the night; Grantaire sinks down heavily onto the stones beneath him. Gavroche had not voiced his worries, but that does not make the object of fear any less real. For the first time, Grantaire feels like an irresponsible drunk. An irresponsible man, every bit the failure Enjolras had first figured him as. He shouldn’t feel as such – or so his mind says – but as the night moves slowly forward it becomes ever harder to tell himself so, to live with that reality inside of him.

He makes his way home, eventually, but it’s slow going. He keeps stopping to look up at the stars. He wonders also where Gavroche returns to at night.

 

**ii.**

 

Grantaire doesn’t understand how Gavroche is able to worm his way into the Musain so frequently. Houcheloup must be going soft in her old age, or maybe he’s just so present that it no longer matters. Gavroche _cares_. He has more purpose being here than Grantaire does, God help them all. Grantaire knows who would do better with a gun, at least.

He watches Gavroche dancing from table to table, his energy endless and expendable. Grantaire does know how or when he managed to worm his way into the hearts of everyone there, but the fact remains that he has: even Enjolras, man of marble that he is, has humoured Gavroche at one time or another. Grantaire slumps a little further into his seat as the man in question walks in through the door. His hands are full of papers – plans to encourage those who would remain ordinary to become bloody, useless heroes in the revolution to come. Grantaire’s grip on the wine bottle in front of him tightens on instinct. If anybody is a fool here, it is not him. It is every man that surrounds him – and a boy, too.

Gavroche straightens up as Enjolras enters, extracting himself from a conversation with Feuilly and Bahorel. There is a flicker of a smile on Enjolras’ face when their eyes meet – only to fall as his eyes move from Gavroche to Grantaire, who lifts up his drink and downs it like he knows nothing else. Being treated as a disappointment by Apollo himself is nothing new; it is the only true joy of Grantaire’s life. He puts the bottle down to find Enjolras looking the other way, but Gavroche’s eyes are on him. He looks from the back of Enjolras’ head to Grantaire and back again, then saunters over towards Grantaire’s empty table. Lord knows where Joly and Bossuet are in his time of desperate need.

Gavroche leaps up onto the chair beside him. His legs don’t touch the floor. “You all right?” he asks, which, Grantaire supposes, is a perfectly reasonable question to ask an alcoholic on a Thursday evening when the weather is poor and things are as bad as they have always been. He swats a hand as Gavroche reaches for the bottle on the table.

“I’m fine,” he says, looking away from Gavroche and back to Enjolras again. He stands talking with Combeferre, head bowed; his golden hair is loose and hangs over his face like a wave. Grantaire’s fingers itch with the need to paint him. He looks back at Gavroche, smiling thinly. “Just fine.”

“You love him,” Gavroche says definitively, staring up at him. Grantaire laughs, lifting the wine bottle to his lips.

“Doesn’t everyone?” he asks, slurring slightly. “Everyone must love Apollo. He is a god.”

But Gavroche is already shaking his head. “Not like that,” he says. He takes off his cap, frowning up at Grantaire like he is the world’s last mystery. “You love him like Bossuet and Joly love Musichetta.”

“A most unseemly habit, that,” Grantaire replies, wafting a hand. He tries not to behave like a man who’s heart is fluttering in his chest. “A man loving another man.” Gavroche rolls his eyes in a way that is almost audible.

“Whatever you say. But don’t think he hates you.” He slides down off the chair, then turns to smile at him. It is one of the more genuine Gavroche smiles; uncertain, to a degree, like that night by the Seine. Grantaire scowls at him anyway. It’s the only thing he knows how to do.

“Of course he hates me,” he says, trying to sound caustic and failing. “It’s Enjolras.”

Gavroche pulls his cap back over his face. He looks up at Grantaire like he trusts him, which makes about as much sense as the last sentiment.

“You believe in something,” he says to him, and Grantaire wonders when he got so old. “That’s enough for me.”

 

**iii.**

 

Grantaire isn’t paying attention when Gavroche flies in through the doorway. He phased out some time ago, drunk not on alcohol this time but on the sound of Enjolras’ voice as he talks endlessly about liberty and equity and all manner of impossible things. Sobriety in a tavern is almost impossible, but he’s keeping to it. He’s sick of not feeling awake when he ought to be. Sick of Enjolras’ looking at him like the disappointment he is. Gavroche’s words from a few weeks ago won’t leave him alone; they’re as much a bother as anything else in the room with him today. Even with Joly and Bossuet he is distracted.

“Grantaire! Enjolras!”

Gavroche’s voice is piercing; even from within the Corinth where everything echoes. Grantaire raises his head at the familiar sound – then stands up, abandoning any pretence of listening to Joly about his latest malady as he makes his way towards the boy. Boys such as Gavroche do not cry, but there is no denying now that there are tears on his face. Enjolras and Combeferre are too busy with the gunpowder to notice; Grantaire kneels down in front of Gavroche, a hand on his shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, as Gavroche breathes in, hitching every time he tries to speak. Familiar footsteps sound at Grantaire’s right; he would know Enjolras, he thinks, even with his eyes closed, even at the end of the world.

“Gavroche?” he asks. Gavroche hiccups; Enjolras, like Grantaire, crouches down in front of him. Grantaire hates himself a little for being surprised at that, the _humanness_ of the gesture. He hadn’t thought Enjolras’ revolution would leave room for kindness.

Gavroche looks at both of them in turn. His voice, when it appears, is very small.

“Lamarque is dead,” he says, looking first at Enjolras and then at Grantaire. He hiccups again; Grantaire pulls him closer on instinct, wrapping his arms around him; Gavroche’s hiccups quickly dissolve into a volley of sobs. Enjolras stands quickly up, addressing the room at large. Gavroche pushes himself a little further into Grantaire’s chest.

Enjolras has been readying himself for this exact purpose for months on end; Grantaire is but a spectator. He holds onto Gavroche for as long as he needs, painfully aware of the similarities between them. There have nobody else. They must look out for each other.

 

**iiii.**

 

Grantaire became invested in this revolution roughly about the same time Gavroche decided he might die for it. It’s hurting him now. There’s a trickle of blood running down his face and he can’t hear properly in one ear, but none of that is important. He watches Gavroche scramble over the barricade with the same sort of dull dread in his stomach that he’s been feeling for weeks. He knows what that feeling means. It means the end.

Enjolras is calling after him, impatient and angry. If he leans out any further he’s going to get himself shot. Grantaire can’t even bring himself to do that. Slowly, with movements mechanical, he climbs up to the top of the barricade on the opposite side, trying to see down into the dark street below. There are bodies everywhere he looks – that alone is enough to make him feel sick. A small, lithe shape darts between them – stealing bullets, throwing the cartridges up to the men above. There are men standing at the end of the street. Grantaire closes his eyes for a brief moment, praying for the first time in years.

“Gavroche!” Enjolras shouts after him, furious, leaning heavily on the rifle beside him in his attempt to grab hold of the boy. He glances sideways, catches Grantaire’s eye, gestures for him to demand the same. Grantaire just shakes his head dumbly. He is not like Enjolras. He is too full of fear.

A bullet whistles over Gavroche’s head; he laughs, dances between the fallen gendarmes like the child he should have been. Grantaire flinches. Somehow, he finds his voice.

“Gav!” he croaks, barely audible above the tumult of approaching footsteps. “Gav, please! Come back already.”

Gavroche laughs again and throws another cartridge over the barricade. If he has heard Grantaire, he makes no sign of it. Enjolras he hears and ignores.

“I’m almost there!” he shouts, and Grantaire pushes himself out a little further, dangling precariously over the edge. He doesn’t know when he came to care so much – he wishes he could pinpoint it.

Another bullet. Another cry from Enjolras. “Gavroche!”

Gavroche swings himself up onto the lowest part of the barricade – part of a chair, Grantaire assumes, or something like it. A bullet roars past his ear; Joly yanks him down by his shirt collar. He doesn’t apologise. He doesn’t have time.

Because he is a boy and a foolish one, Gavroche does not climb down straight away when he reaches the top of the barricade. He pauses, turning back to jeer at the approaching soldiers. The lines of Grantaire’s drunken world swerve and blur.

“Take that—!” Gavroche begins, but never finishes, because a bullet takes his place. He staggers for a moment, silhouetted by the spark of gunpowder, and then he falls. He is dead before Enjolras can catch him in his arms.

“No…” Grantaire whispers, except the universe doesn’t hear. Enjolras turns and looks at him, his marble face shadowed by something more than grief. The boy in his arms is tender and still, unquestionably dead. Grantaire takes Gavroche’s body from him without saying a word. He has no more to give.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave a comment or some kudos.
> 
> You can also find me on [Ko-fi](ko-fi.com/pyrrhlc) if you want to donate or leave a fic request for the price of a coffee.


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